Akwaeke Emezi is a wizard, a conjurer and a reporter within their novelistic oeuvre. In addition to their deeply personal memoir, DEAR SENTHURAN, they have written children’s lit like PET (which was a National Book Award finalist) and novels for adults like THE DEATH OF VIVEK OJI. Their latest effort, SON OF THE MORNING, is a paranormal romantic fantasy that is set in the deep American South.

Galilee is being brought up amidst a clan of Black women who know and exercise their power to protect each other and their community. Although they don’t tell her anything, she knows that her existence has something to do with an ancient secret. She senses that something very elemental is missing from her soul, but she can’t determine what it is.

"I am not a huge romance fan, but I certainly enjoy fantasy that builds its plot around mystical and magical worlds where women have a lot of power. So I highly recommend this book to all serious lovers of fantasy."

When Galilee meets Lucifer Helel, the head of security for her rich friend’s family, she understands innately that he is not human --- but Lucifer knows what she is. Then a prince of Hell named Leviathan arrives and tries to stop the attraction between Lucifer and Galilee from destroying everything meaningful to him. What happens next results in Heaven battling Hell and perhaps bringing Galilee and her powerful clan to bear the brunt of this evil and an end to their magical ways.

Emezi recently participated in a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything). When asked about the use of Black American folklore, they responded, “I think of it as a light touch since I'm not Black American. It's clearly Black and Southern, and those who know can see the Hoodoo references, but I didn't feel it was my place to go too deep into that because it's a closed practice that I'm not a part of.”

When questioned about their decision to write this type of novel, Emezi explained, “I think reading romance for so long has made me super familiar with the genre, with the tropes and the beats and how to subvert them or play along with them. So like with my new romantasy, SON OF THE MORNING, I deeply enjoyed writing to the specifications of the subgenre while keeping the plot engaging, because that's what I would enjoy reading.” They went on to describe “meeting the characters in a dream and probably being raised Catholic,” which helped them delve headfirst into this immersive story.

I am not a huge romance fan, but I certainly enjoy fantasy that builds its plot around mystical and magical worlds where women have a lot of power. So I highly recommend this book to all serious lovers of fantasy. The romance feels epic, like the story of Troilus and Cressida or tales from Chaucer and Dante. It appears that Emezi really trawled through a lot of classic fiction in order to find a way to bring a diasporic account of Heaven and Hell and all that it touches to this star-crossed couple.

Emezi also said, “I think the main genre left is adult fantasy --- I've written YA fantasy and romance fantasy, but straight up fantasy is one of my favorite genres to read. Romance is wayyyy more fun than other genres to write (except fantasy), mostly because it's super fun for me to read, so I end up enjoying the story as I'm creating it and wanting to find out what happens next!” Any reader will be able to enjoy this work just as much as Emezi did while they were writing it.

In the same way that Zora Neale Hurston and Toni Morrison created small Black communities in their novels, where all the woes and wonders of the world are examined, SON OF THE MORNING introduces readers to an honorable and admirable group of women who must fight hard for their agency and safety while Galilee’s romance unleashes ancient power plays.